I have never seen policemen carry people around except in the line of duty. Meanwhile, they always make an exception for one Mr. Hrybalsky, the wheelchair repairman. When he drives up to the Oblast Council building in his car and, unaided, gets into his wheelchair, he cannot climb the few steps leading up to the elevator, and that is where the police come to the rescue and deliver him directly to the elevator door.
Recently, Mr. Hrybalsky had to climb various stairs in his capacity as both manager of the Independent Life Resource Center (in the Lviv area he is known as the champion of the rights of the physically challenged) and acting director of a local wheelchair repair shop that was opened four years ago by four disabled individuals aided by Dutch philanthropists.
The idea to open a wheelchair repair shop belongs to a group of physically challenged foreigners who have been for many years visiting Yaroslav Hrybalsky and his friends to discuss common problems, share experience, and unwind. They helped receive a grant provided jointly by the Moral Rearmament Movement, Reykjavik Rotary Club, and Foreign Ministry of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The repair shop was fitted out with specialized tools, its staff trained in Holland. It received funding for a year. Many in Lviv knew there was a repair shop on the premises of Vocational School No. 33, where one could have his wheelchair repaired quickly and free of charge, as it had a contract signed with the Ukrprotez Prosthetic Plant that covered all repair costs. They could even drive their hand controlled Zaporozhets vehicles directly to clients’ homes to pick up wheelchairs and return them in like manner.
A year later, when the Dutch grant ran out, it became clear that the life of an entrepreneur in Ukraine is not all that easy. This is especially true of disabled individuals managing the repair shop, who did not take special note of the fact that their business was assigned a code and classed as a maintenance shop for cars and other vehicles. As a result, the rent and heating bill in the wintertime came to UAH 2,000 a month, which they could not afford for understandable reasons. They had to find a way out of the situation, and Mr. Hrybalsky invited all kinds of commissions to show them the repair shop did not in fact repair any foreign cars. Moreover, they had neither the room nor physical ability to do so.
I am hard put to picture four individuals confined to wheelchairs undertaking something of the kind. There was no way they could get into our bureaucratic establishments. They just sat at the door looking for someone to show mercy and take the documents to the required office. Luckily, there were people kind enough to help them. Incidentally, this way they were assigned a code of a vehicle maintenance shop in absentia. However, the officials can be excused for this oversight, since this is an unprecedented case in Ukraine, and there is no special code for a wheelchair repair shop run by the disabled.
While they were searching for a solution, the repair shop ran up a bill of UAH 25,000 and its account was frozen. To be frank, the officials did seem eager to help these four resolute individuals and told them to obtain all kinds of certificates. But who would issue a certificate confirming that they repaired no foreign cars?
As a last resort, Mr. Hrybalsky appealed to the Lviv Oblast State Administration Economy Department. Surprisingly, his appeal for help met an immediate response, and in a matter of days the repair shop was assigned a code that equated it with a bicycle repair shop. Overjoyed, Mr. Hrybalsky brandished the document. Now he has to pass the last circle of hell and either find money or a way to have his debt written off. There is no telling whether he will succeed and save the world’s only repair shop of its kind.
